Painting The Memories
by The Ivy Among Roses
Summary: She cannot stop running from the life she knew, the nightmares that follow her, and the man that the dreams are made of. She is running from Gisborne. But as she flees from the life she knew, can she make a new one as an outlaw? But as life in the forest becomes harder as Robin forces her to accept normal life, it plunges her into memories of life before...OC Fic I own nothing.
1. Chapter 1

I cannot stop running.

Every stone and twig that holds a sharp point jabs into my feet, but the pain is put on hold, escape is all I care about now.

Escape is all I have ever cared about.

The thump of hoof beats echoes through the silent forest, several pairs of animals, all topped with men sent to capture me, their cat calls and yells drowning out the birds, like a rainstorm on a sun filled day.

Not that I would remember what that is like.

Escape had been simple enough, a thump on the head of the jailer all that was needed to send him into a deep and restful sleep, but now, at the current timing, where no celebration was ongoing to distract Gisborne from me it seems like a bad idea. My escape from my cell was noticed almost the moment it happened.

How I am able to maintain such a fast pace I do not know, but I am sure that my broken arms, legs and ribs will make me pay for it, with fiery vengeance and distaste, once I stop.

"You five, head her off on the eastern path, she's heading for Nettlestone!" Gisborne's booming voice follows me up the path, his subtlety not any better than when I first met him.

If I don't head off the path now, I risk almost certain recapture, and possible death. If I head off now, the chances of death are lessened considerably.

I veer off quickly and suddenly, plunging off the slightly elevated path into the forest, dodging trees and bushes, all green with spring, all the while listening to the sound of fast approaching hoof beats, closer still.

I stop for a second, barely a single heartbeat, but still long enough for Gisborne to catch sight of me.

In my head I can just imagine what he will do if he can catch me, the though chilling me, and Gisborne yells for his followers, pulling his horse into the ravine after me, the sleek beast gaining ground quickly. Panic clouds almost every thought, staining my blood stream with adrenaline, clotting it like ink.

Suddenly an arrow flies past my ear, lodging itself into the shoulder of a following guard, followed by several more, all avoiding me, but landing in or close to the guards that pursue me, all arrows sent quite clear of my stationary self.

Gisborne reins in his horse suddenly, an angry smirk on his face.

Several men begin to pool around me, all but two with bows raised, the one brandishing a long wooden staff, the other a sword and shield, a woman among them as well.

But despite the fact that these men could be here to save me, my eyes never vary from Gisborne.

"Now Hood, you know it's not nice to take things that aren't yours." Snarls Gisborne, trying to control his horse, who has began bucking wildly at the sight of drawn weapons, the man atop it swaying on its back.

"I doubt she belongs to you Gisborne, her hairs not greasy like yours." Says one of them, the one Gisborne seemed to have been speaking to, the one he called Hood.

A man puts a hand on my shoulder, trying to turn me around so I can walk away, but I stand stalk still, staring at Gisborne.

"That's right pet; you don't have anywhere to go. Come back with me, come back to the arms that are waiting only for you." He coos, his voice softer, almost pleasant. I do not move.

"Shove off Giborne! Don't you have money to pillage from villagers, or children to frighten?"

Gisborne gets off his horse, drawing his sword, and pointing it at me, the blade all too familiar, its sting far too remembered.

"I'm not leaving without her."

The woman stands in front of me, her bow raised, a sword in its scabbard around her waist. Several of the guards begin milling around their leader, swords drawn, and hands ready to work the blades.

The fight begins with a single action, an arrow drawn, it's mark hit, and in seconds the fight is in full force, the outlaws winning, without killing, merely aggravating blows and unconscious bodies. One man, a giant compared to the others, seems to have a knack for knocking many men to the ground with his large and heavily set staff, sending several guards to the ground in a single blow.

In the heat of battle, Gisborne comes for me, all the outlaws too busy to notice the reason they are fighting is threatened by the thing they are fighting against.

"Come on now, you know where you belong." He says, reaching for me, his gloved hand inches from my shoulder. My fist connects so suddenly with his face that I barely have time to think before he is raising his sword again, as if the blow had no effect, standing in an instant. I parry his attempted murder, landing my elbow into his back, my fight taken over by Hood as Gisborne gets up. The woman pulls me to the side, letting the men take over, hiding me behind a tree.

"My name is Djaq. Are all your ligaments broken?"

I nod. For several years now, my arms and legs have been held in awkward positions, having been repeatedly broken, the physicians that came to see me once a year, under strict orders not to heal them, as the working use of my limbs could inspire escape. Looks like that didn't really help.

"Why does he want you so bad? Why go through all this trouble to capture you?"

I look up at her, a fire burning in my eyes.

And then the blackness began clouding my vision, my knees buckling, and within seconds, everything was gone…

"I'm not bein' funny, but if she was in the same dungeon as us, then why didn't we see her?"

"We probably did, just didn't think of it at the time. She looks pretty normal doesn't she? I mean apart from the twisted arm, and the broken nose, the distinctive ginger hair, too many bruises, burns, cuts and scars to count and not to mention th-"

"Much, you can stop anytime."

"Sorry but, I mean look at the state of her. She looks like she's been trampled by the King's private guard of horses."

"If she was in the dungeon for as many years as Gisborne says she was, I don't blame her."

"How many years did he say between blows again?"

"7 years of that treatment."

"I just can't imagine anything like that. 7 years of abuse. If she had sustained all this damage at one time, she would have died."

"Why isn't she awake yet? It's been hours."

"Allan! Head injuries are delicate things. One blow can reverse a person's memory completely. This girl has been suffering them for 7 years; you can't exactly expect her to wake up just because you want her to."

"Apparently I can."

I hear a sudden low and gravely anguished moan, embarrassment as I realize it came from me. The world spins as I open my eyes, moving in and out of focus, the men in front of me swaying and their words so loud they are jack knives in my ears.

I realize what has happened.

Gisborne, my escape.

"Easy, easy your safe here."

That was what Gisborne said the first time he cut me, though I wasn't a fool.

That was what he said the second time, and the third, until he got bored of the lying.

I get up quickly looking around frantically, trying to find any way to escape, calculating the odds of outrunning them should they try and stop me. The men who had been sitting stand up, arms outstretched, trying to keep me at bay, like a handler with a rabid dog, most telling me it's okay, I should sit down, and they aren't going to hurt me.

But everyone hurts me.

One man steps forward, his hands outstretched, his large and bearlike form intimidating.

"My name is Little John. Can you speak?"

Speak? I haven't had to speak in 7 years. Words were useless in a place where reaction has been my only need, thoughts foreign, useless things that only Gisborne used.

I can speak but I do not want to.

"Do you know your name?" His voice is level, and he speaks loudly as though he thinks I am hard of hearing, maybe even a mute, though his question makes perfect sense to me.

A name? Why would I need such a thing? He calls me pet, nothing more nothing less, pet is all I have ever been called. Everything before him is lost.

I have forgotten my name.

But I do not give away anything, merely stand there, looking at him when he talks so he knows I can hear, but I still look around for ways to escape. There is an abnormally large tree behind me, and in front I am completely encircled by men and Djaq, all prepared to draw their weapons should I attack.

Is this how the outside world treats each other? Prepared to hurt them should they step out of line? Do I really appear to be a wild animal, who cannot understand speech nor actions, does not recognize friend and foe, and cannot begin to understand the complexity of words?

Around me the forest is _alive_. I can hear the wind blowing around me, its gentle touch cool against my arms, pulling at my clothes. The trees grow tall here, reaching for the faraway heavens, grasping at them with green fingers, their trunks heavy and solid against the ground.

Around me the forest is alive.

But inside I am dead.

"Do you want to sit down? You took quite a tumble and shouldn't stand for too long."

Does this fool really think I fell?

I shake my head. I will not sit with them around; submission now could be a death sentence.

Djaq moves towards me, slowly making to touch me, maybe get me to sit, but I do not find out as I jump back a foot or so, a low noise rumbling in the back of my throat, my legs aching from their extensive use yesterday.

I do not trust them.

I can feel the stab wound I received yesterday, the final wound Gisborne gave me. I can feel the blood, slowly beginning to pool on my leg, crawling down to my ankle, leaving a trail of almost black blood on my pant leg, the wound itself on my shin, but that is not the only thing I worry about.

My legs begin searing as I remain in the in the standing position, my head pounding as it always does, only much worse when I am not in the cool darkness of my cell, my arms aching and every part of me screaming for sleep.

I do not know how much longer I can stay awake, as sleep slowly begins calling to me, my aching head willing to go to it, but my will against this motive.

I will not be able to do this for long…

_If I don't tend to this girl's bleeding leg now, she will pass out…_ I watch her hurt, my healer genes telling me to help her, but her reluctance to be touched is alarming.

I move slowly towards her, trying to be as slow as possible, but every time I think I am getting close, she backs up again. Her breathing is low and fast, and if she remains standing, the extensive amount of head injuries she has will cause her to pass out. Robin moves over to join me, slowly, making his movements loud and obvious, eyed ever suspiciously by the girl. Robin looks at John hard, and the gruff bear of a man understands that he should keep her busy.

"Her right leg…" he whispers in my ear.

"If I don't stop the bleeding, she could die."

"How soon?" Robin looks up at the girl, who is now trying to watch the movements of everyone. Her gaze flies from Will and Allan, who are moving slowly over to her left, moving in ever closer, pushing her towards Robin and I, to Much and John who stand side by side, talking to her in hushed tones, trying to get through to her, to notice any sort of communication, then finally to Robin and I, her gaze lingering on us for the longest. I can see the fear in her eyes, her uneven pupils from concussions. Her gaze holds Robin's for a heartbeat or two, her eyes, calculating and fearful, breaking the stare as she hears allan step on a twig in his attempt to move closer, the small branch snapping loudly. The blood on her leg has started running onto the forest floor, soaking the leaves around her foot.

"20 minutes. We need to get her on the ground."

"How though? She won't let us touch her, let alone help her. Look at what Will and Allan are doing. That's about as simple as it gets and she still won't be touched."

I look at the concentration in Will's eyes, how he is trying to make his movements as simple and slow as possible, how he knows that a sudden movement will only scare her. I turn back to Robin.

"Tackle her and knock her out. Not head injury, but her airway, put her in a headlock." My thinking is almost too quick.

"That'll scare her though, and she's terrified as it is."

"You really care about how scared she is now; think about how scared she'll be when she is dying of blood loss."

"I ju-. I jsu don't want he to hate me…" whimpers Robin. He looks up at her again, feeling her gaze on him, her green eyed gaze piercing and frightened. He looks back at me.

"Djaq are you sure?"

"It's knocking her out, or her death. Your call." Robin watches her leg, her movements and their jaggedness. He nods slowly.

With a sudden speed he attacks her, pulling her to the ground, and managing to get a headlock around her throat,

Her hands grab at his hair, but his grip is forever resilient, but so is her struggle, her chocking gasps of air strong and filling, her hands trying to stop Robin's choke hold opening her lungs at the same time, allowing for more air to travel to her heart.

"Her hands!"I yell.

Will and Allan rush forward grabbing her hands and slamming them against the ground, and in seconds, her head slumps, her hands slacken, eyes closing, breathing becoming shallow, and in a few more heartbeats she is quiet and still…

"Sorry," Robin says apologetically, staring down at her," It's for your own good."

"People," says Much, staring at the still unconscious guest on the forest floor," Should not bleed that much."

Everyone nods, silent as ever, all aghast that someone's leg can produce just that much blood.

"I mean, really, we can't have that much blood in us… Can we?" he whimpers, scraping off some of the blood on his hands thoughtfully.

The silence is intoxicating.

"Much we've seen people like this. Back in the Holy Land when we invaded the outposts? Remember all the people who were tortured? All the people without names, or speech, woman, children and men who only wanted to have a hard day's work? All the people who looked just like her." Said Robin, throwing away a blood soaked rag, one of the many that had been used to stop the blood flow from her leg.

"But, Master, I thought we left that in the Holy Land." Robin looked away, away from the eyes of his man servant, away from the eyes of his gang, and looked instead to the girl, the one that would hate him when she woke up, the one who had probably endured pain much worse than he could imagine, the one who had shown no evidence that she could talk, the one that Robin had to help.

"It followed us here Much."

"Oi what'er we gonna do with her when she wakes up? I mean, she shouldn't stand should she Djaq?" Allan looked over at Djaq for assurance that he was right.

"She could bleed even more if she stands, or just pass out again."

"That still begs the question of what we do." Said Much, staring at her blankly, eyeing the cuts and yellow bruises on her face, all appearing to have been there for years.

"I have been treated like an animal, though not to the extent that she has been." Said Djaq, and all men remembered when they had first met her, the slave boy, the dirty, healer slave boy.

"And what did you want? How did you want to be treated?"

Djaq looked grim.

"Like a person."

_A/N Hello fanfiction universe! I have decided there should be more OC Robin Hood fanfic so I made one. So this is my first Robin Hood fanfiction, hope I got the characters right, if not, drop me a line and tell me why. I am so flippin tired of using pronouns so our mystery girl gets a name in the next chapter!_

_I don't mean to be greedy or anything, but it would be really great if I got a reviews… anyone?_


	2. Chapter 2

_Just hand it to her, _thinks Allan,_ you hand soup to normal people. Not with the rest of the gang watching your every move, checking to make sure you treat her human, but still, you've handed soup to people._

Sudden panic grips the Englishman as the girl's eyes scrunch and flutter open, a hand flying to rub her throat, where a bruise has since appeared, and he watches as fear and understanding fly to her tired eyes, and she looks at him suspiciously, even warily.

He passes her the bowl of steaming hot rabbit soup, smiling at her as reassuringly as possible. She takes it from him, slowly, staring at it as if expecting it to explode or insult her.

"We haven't poisoned it if that's what your worried about." Smiles Allan. She shrugs.

"Can never be too careful." says a croaky low voice. Allan nearly jumps out of his skin in surprise, the voice unfamiliar, and the collective gasps of the rest of the gang confirm that the girl had spoken.

"You speak." Said an aghast Will.

The girl, who sat curled against a tree, a hot bowl of soup sitting on her lap, looked up at Will defiantly.

"I speak, I sneeze, I yawn, I scream, I breathe, I bleed, I hate, I feel, I remember, I hurt, I listen, I watch, I sleep, I eat, I drink, I deal, I survive. Now tell me," she said holding up a spoonful of stew as is to toast him and his bewildered gaze," What do you do?" and with that, she downed the stew. Will stared back at her, his eyes fixed and intense.

"I speak, I sneeze, I yawn, I yell, I help, I hunt, I breathe, I feel, I remember, I hurt, I listen, I watch, I wait, I sleep, I eat, I drink, I shoot, I run, I throw." She stared back at him, meeting his intensity with that of her own, a gaze that smoldered with nothingness, a calculating gaze, as if sizing him up.

"Then you and I are not that different."

And with that, they got a smile, a fleeting glimpse of white teeth, the bruises and cuts almost gone as she smiled, looking up at the sky. Across from her, Will smiled too.

"Who are you exactly?" asked Will, looking to the heavens trying to find what she was looking at in such awe. She pauses, thinking for a moment, staring off to the side.

"If I ever had name I have forgotten it." No one speaks for a moment, but now everyone tries to find what is so fascinating about the sky, contorting themselves to try and find what she looked at.

"What were you lookin' at?" asks Allan, rubbing his now sore neck.

She laughs a little shaking her head. "You outlaws take your lives for granted. You get to look at the sky every day, feel the sun, and feel the rain and the wind. They are luxuries I would love to have. I haven't seen a cloud in long, long time."

"You should have a name. Didn't Gisborne call you anything?" asks Djaq, changing the subject very quickly, pulling her away from her time in the cell to something that has only arisen in her time outside.

The girl shakes her head.

"I have no name that I can recall. If I ever did I have forgotten it. He called me Pet. That's not really a name though is it," she looks down at the bowl of soup and pokes at something in it," Is this is a rat? It looks awfully small."

Much grits his teeth as almost everyone begin grunting and snorting, trying to stop laughing.

"It. Is. A. Squirrel."

_Okay concerning my last chapter, my stupid doc uploaded does not upload breakers, so when the POV changes, there used to be a rather large line separating all paragraphs. Sorry._


	3. Chapter 3

"What about Sarah? I like the name Sarah."

"Nah we know too many women named Sarah."

"I knew a Sarah once. She was hanged three days after I met her."

"Not Sarah then. What about Katherine?"

"No, my Mum was named Katherine, and she hit me when I didn't help my brother at the blacksmith's."

"You didn't know that Allan."

"I don't exactly tell a lot of people that."

"I am not a Katherine."

"Quite right, you look more like an Allison."

(Silence)

"Okay not Allison, it was just an idea."

"No, Much do not be so easily wounded, I like that name."

"I like it to."

"And what about you?"

"I don't remember meeting an Allison in the dungeons. "

"Wonderful! Hello Allison, I'm Much."

"That's Will."

"Hi Will."

"Hello Allie."

"You know Djaq and John, the man who looks like a ferret is Allan, and last but not least that is R-"

"You mean the evil one."

"Wow, the what? I just helped save your life."

"By half attempted murder."

"You weren't exactly corresponding! What were we supposed to do?"

"Ask me nicely."

(silence)

"Ah, you lot didn't think of that now did you? Some of the simplest things are soon realized as the most complicated…"

"That's wise. "

"Thank you John. Voice isn't often used where I come from, and the people who use it in the slums of the castle don't usually last long. It's a pleasure to talk again."

"When you say people who talk don't last long do you me-"

"The people who talk, burn, yes Much, I mean that quite literally."

"How come we never see this when we're in there? We're in there quite a lot too, and no one burns, and we never hear you screaming."

"He usually is too busy to keep his schedule, but you are always around see it, you hear it, you smell it, and you are a part of it. It always happens, you just don't notice. I watch you outlaws come and go in my dungeon, all the while leaving something behind, a blood smear, a scorch mark, a dented post, a broken nose, never passing a thought across the people who were there before. We always see you. We see the legacy you leave behind, we are always there. We are always watching."

"That too, is wise."

"You meet a lot of wise people in the slums of the castle, depends on if you listen when they talk for the first three days."

"First three days?"

"You don't stop crying after that…"

XxXxXxXxXxXxX

"So you're going to… fix my legs?"

"And arms hopefully." I look at Djaq, aghast, wondering if these outlaws eat mushrooms, because there is obviously something wrong with them. I didn't think my legs could be fixed; let alone my arms, their constant aching discouraging and not leaving much hope for 'Fixing'.

"And you're what, just going to snap them into place?"

Djaq smiled. "Hopefully."

Robin crossed his arms over his chest, smiling down at me, his cheeky face aggravating.

"You seem to be hoping a lot of things." Allan looks over, smiling almost as cheekily as Robin, raising his eyebrows in a mocking way. I find it rather annoying, even more so as he says,

"You scared?" I shook him a look, eyes narrowed and pointedly irritated.

"M'not scared, just do it." Djaq bends down over my right leg, thin and bony hands grasping my shin, pain radiating from where her fingers touch. She looks over at me, grinning. Why are all outlaws so happy?

"This will hurt. Are you brave?" I breathe in deeply, closing m eyes, thinking up a comeback.

"After 7 years with a man who only wears leather you better believe I am." The band of outlaws laugh, and Djaq suddenly jerks my leg sharply, a loud crack ringing through my ears as tendons spring back into spot and bones realign. Robin is suddenly by my side as I groan, closing my eyes and letting my head roll around on the truck of the tree I am lying against, fire rising up my legs in droves, a heat wave on an already barren land.

"Allie, stay awake now, I thought you were brave." I can almost _hear _Robin's grin as he snaps his fingers in my ear, and between sharp in takes of breath I manage to hiss out the words

"Shut up."

And right after I say this, I can feel Djaq's hands on my left leg, the one that was first broken, the one that partially healed in the wrong position. I close my eyes as Djaq grabs my leg painfully, and twists it violently, like a dog killing a rabbit, back and forth and back and forth.

Is there a word to describe the pain? Searing? No, that doesn't give justice to the dull, gut wrenching nature of the hot burning tension that suddenly relaxes. Agonizing? Too blunt and ill used. Torture? No I have known torture and this surpasses it. This pain is _devouring, _a sick and ominous pain that burns in the core of bone, chars flesh with its flames, and screams at me that it is here to stay.

"Is she out cold?"

"I dunno."

"It'll be better if she is. Arms were always harder for my father."

"Wait no look, her eyes opened for a second."

"God and I was looking forward to taunting her."

"Allie? Do not fight to stay conscious. Now I'm going to realign your arms now okay?"

_No. Not okay _I think. I can feel my arm, and Djaq's hands on it, and then, for the first time since I left my cell, as I feel the snap, I scream.

Screaming is familiar, a contraction my throat is used to, one it remembers well, welcomes it as an old friend.

For a second life seems so damn peaceful that I forget the pain. Even though I can't see it, the forest is _alive._

The wind rustles through the trees I know are green, rubbing branches together, pulling already fallen foliage from the ground to join it in a dance, calling to it to play, and beckoning it to follow.

Around me the forest is _alive._

And inside, for the first time in 7 years, so am I.

And then without warning , my other arm is snapped back into place, and, I master the pain, remembering the cold self I become whenever Gisborne walks into my cell, the self that knows pain beyond pain, the me that takes it in stride.

I do not make a sound.

"Okay Allie wake up. No time for sleeping, there are people who need help and you need to start walking. Get up." Someone is poking me in between the eyes, and damn is it annoying, but in the back ground I can hear a gleeful Allan singing a song: "She scre-eamed she scre-eamed"

"I'll get up when Allan shuts his stupid mouth."

The gleeful outlaws laugh and I am pulled roughly to my feet, panic gripping me, my heart racing, because apart from my escape, spurred on by adrenaline, I haven't walked in 7 years. My joints lock into place, tendons squelching into spot, bones straightening. I can stand, but as I try to take a step I sway, though I catch my balance unusually quickly.

Birds begin chirping, previously strong wind now a gentle breeze, crisp air glorious and fresh, not stuffy and used. Robin is by my side arms ready to catch me if fall, Will is playing with something wooden as I soon realized he does often, Djaq is cleaning blood off her fingers from the shin she grasped, the one that bleeds copiously without my consent, mumbling out an hasty apology for hurting me, Allan is looking smug though silent, Much and John are gathering goods like food. I look over at Robin and he nods, smiling his silly grin.

I take a step.

Then another.

And then another.

And then I am hugging Djaq, who had been 3 meters away, with arms that can wrap all the way around her thin form.

"Thank you." I whisper in her ear.

"Glad you hoped with us." She whispers back.

XxXxXxXxXxXxX

"Town is scary."

Will laughs hastily tapping the fence we are leaning against.

"No its not, and this isn't even town yet. It's Nettlestone, one of the smaller villages."

But really all the noise compared to the slums I had grown used to is overwhelming. People are walking around and bailing hay, speaking to each other in passing, tending to horses, and calling for their children as night begins to fall. I can smell fires burning, their smoke heavy and thick in the air. All noises feel amplified and drowning.

"I don't care where it is. It's loud and noisy… and it smells worse than the dungeon. People are always moving and talking, there are animals and children. I can't even hear myself thinking. How do you deal with it?" I turn to him eyebrows high on my forehead.

He looks at me thoughtfully.

"It's… easier for me. I grew up in a place just like this, with a brother and a mom who died for me. I found it harder living in the silence of the forest then the noise of a village. I," he looks away from me for a second, thinking. "Do you remember your life before Gisborne?"

I think long and hard, moments passed with Will looking at me hard.

"I remember all of it. Everything. I remember the tree outside my house, and how big it was. I remember when my father was drunk. I remember when my mother died and I was left alone with him, and he stopped drinking for a year. Then the second year came along, and he sent me away, said that he didn't want me. I remember when Gisborne found me. I remember the first time he stabbed me, I remember the way I cried on the third day, and the way my legs felt when he broke them. I can remember how I could have escaped loads of times but I didn't because when he did talk," Emotions are something I had almost forgotten about, where I didn't need them for years, but even as I speak with Will, someone I only recently met, tears begin burning hot in my eyes.

"He said That I had no one. That the only thing I had was this- _That-_ life. And that the only reason I did escape in the end was because… the Sheriff started coming with him. Every time Gisborne came so did he. And he was worse in every way, he burned hotter, cut deeper and…"

Will stays silent, listening, watching for the rest of the gang as they begin to emerge from houses, their baggage gone, laughing like children, and I can't help but wonder what they have to be so happy about.

"What did he do Allie?" he finally asks, after a few heartbeats of silence, silence I spend trying to find the words to describe in one word what the Sheriff was.

"He said I had no fight. I was not worth hurting anymore. That I had no will left. No purpose." I sniffed, as silently as possible, mind over matter.

"And you believed him." Finished Will, doing his best not to look at me always straight ahead, but I see his eyes flick over to look at me, but my eyes fix on the other members of Robin's gang, as they leave the square of 'Nettlestone' joking and shoving as if without a care in the world.

I wish I knew what they had to be happy about.

But I guess people outside a cell should already be thankful.

Then how come I'm not?

_A/N hello! Thanks for reading! Next chapter should be up soonish, and the XxXxX's mean a break where the tense (past present etc) or point of view could change because my computer won't save breaks in between ._


	4. Chapter 4

_A/N So this takes place the day Allie escaped, then after the XxXxX is in the present. _

"So you're telling me, you _lost _your little pet. And now said pet is in the company of whom?" Gisborne did not look up, but looked very purposefully ahead of him, looking just above the Sheriff's nearly bald head, shame snaking its way through his body, leaking into hidden passages and breeding into fear.

"She is now in the company of Hood." He voice had been flat and monotone, lacking emotion or care.

"Ah, and here we come Gisborne. I was just getting to enjoy having that thing around, and I was starting to wonder," At this, the Sheriff pulled a thin lethal looking instrument out from under the desk, waving it around haphazardly. "I was starting to wonder if she could survive this. I mean, a clue, no. I do not know whether she would survive this, and I might never find out, because. She. Is. Gone." The Sheriff suddenly plunged the instrument into the thick wood of his desk, its shining metal gleaming in the dull light the windows provided.

"I would like to go after her. My lord, she knows things about the castle and the people in it that I would prefer not to be common knowledge, especially the knowledge of Hood and his band of hooligans."

The Sheriff opened his mouth yawningly, looking rather annoyed.

"And what exactly does she know? She doesn't even remember her own name! And tell me Gisborne, do you really think she is even capable of wrapping her pain twisted head around the idea of speech? There is one thing in life I will congratulate you on and that is turning that girl into a whimpering, traumatized mess. But answer me this Gisborne, and only this. Why did she escape?"

Gisborne himself had no idea, so remained silent.

"Exactly… You don't know. So that leads me to believe that she doesn't either… Well done Guy… Well done indeed."

XxXxXxX

It was raining. No rain was an understatement, and by Robin's terms, this was a torrential down pour. They didn't have rains like this in the Holy Land; they didn't have rain at all, so now, as water droplets pound against the gang's pulled up hoods, already soaking down to their skin, chilling them and plastering their hair to their faces, Robin decides that he is miserable.

As he looks to the side to look into the faces of his friends, he can't help but smile as they are intrigued by the same thing as he is: Allie.

As the rain first began to fall, slow and steady, she merely walked shakily down into the center of the small valley they were camping in, and lay down, closing her yes and taking in the rain as it came.

She had not moved even as the rain began to speed up, falling so hard the heads and faces of the outlaws that the droplets began to feel more like hailstones, nor as she became so wet she looked as though she had been completely submerged in a lake, but still she remained as stationary as stone, and as distant and peaceful as a sleeping child.

Much who was sitting on Robin's right, and whispered something in Robin's ear: "Master, what is she doing?"

"I don't know Much. Go ask her."

"But it's raining."

"Much, if she can stay in the rain like that, then so can you. Go, and tell me after because I want to know."

Much gave Robin one fleeting aggravated look, then got up, shivering, and then walked purposefully down the small incline towards Allie.

He stopped right beside her looking back to his friends who nodded, encouraging him onward. Much glanced around at the forest, soaked leaves drooping, though still their vibrant green, dripping tree trunks and sullen outlaws. The air was thick with moisture and rich with the smell of wet dirt and wood, the gray sky rumbling like some kind of wildcat, the earth beneath them threatening to give way.

Much bent down clearing his throat, expecting her eyes to fly open, but she remained still as ever, mouth barely open, eyelashes clinging to raindrops as they hit them, face wet as ever.

"Allie? Are you awake?"

"Yes."

"Would you mind telling me exactly what it is you are doing?"

She inclined her head a little towards him as though to speak to him directly, but still keeps her eyes closed as though scared to look at him.

"Robin sent you over didn't he?" Her voice is flat, almost empty.

"How did you- never mind. Still, what are you doing?" She opens her brilliant green eyes, smiling, and staring up at the angrily cloudy sky, clouds twisting and contorting like smoke on the wind.

"You outlaws take your lives for granted. I haven't felt rain on my face in a while."

Much shakes his head and Allie laughs a tinkling laugh, a laugh almost obliterated by the downpour's loud pounding.

"You've got a nice smile Allie. You should take advantage of that." And with that, Much walks away, leaving Allie to her thinking.

Much takes his seat beside Robin again, sighing heavily, as a fresh wave of wetness poured itself down his back.

"She is embracing the rain and the feeling of it." He said to Robin. "Oh, and she knows you wanted to know."

Robin made no indication he had heard Much, but kept staring intently at Allie, listening to the sounds of the pouring rain, a loud clattering of drops as they bounced off leaves or into the small puddles that had begun to form around the forest. He began chewing on his thumb nail thoughtfully, staring intently at the almost sleeping woman. Without warning he got up and went to lie beside Allie, who began smiling as Robin groaned at the wetness and how he was now as wet as the leaves in the forest, who had survive the full force of the gale.

"What," he said looking up at the sky with her, "could you possibly gain from this?" she laughed.

"Resilience… and… inner peace." Robin propped himself up on one elbow and looked at her in complete disgust.

"Gain inner peace from getting wetter than a lake and resilience from what? Getting cold? Are you mad?"

"Robin if I was not mad, would I be here in the forest with a bushel of soaking outlaws and an angry sky? Of course my mental stability is about as flat, straight and even as your beard. I am completely up the wall, off my rocker and whatever the hell else you can qualify me as." There was a slight pause between her words, a pause that Robin used to analyze what she had just said.

"You like being off your rocker don't you?" Allie snorted and threw wet leaves at him.

"Of course I bloody well do. Means life is easier to cope with."

Again there is a pause where Robin lies back down beside her, now almost as wet as her and not caring, and she closed her eyes again.

"Will you stay?" he finally asks.

"What do you mean?"

"Stay, here in the forest with us? You don't seem to want to go anywhere else, you aren't exactly physically healthy yet and… all the lads and Djaq like you well enough."

"And if I left I would risk getting caught by Gisborne again." She said this in a condescending way, as if accepting the fate that life has handed her.

"Yes."

"Do you personally want me to stay?"

Robin did not need a dramatic pause.

"Yes. So will you stay?"

"Why not?"

Robin smiled into the rain, and was quite sure that deep down; Allie was smiling too, but was too busy finding inner peace that she forgot to…

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX

"You want me to shoot that? It's awfully far isn't it?" Robin laughs, shaking his head at the ground while Allan laughs and Will forces back a smile. The target is only 50 yards, and friendly competition never stopped anyone from shooting a bow did it?

"Just shoot it." Says Robin, "No, make that shoot it, and beat Will and Allan. Come on, if Allan the petty liar and Will the carpenter's son can do it, no reason a dungeon dweller can't."

"But, maybe it's better if I don't learn, I mean my aim is so bad I would probably kill them anyway, because I would have shot so many arrows they could impale themselves if they fell."

"Shoot."

"But I mean what is the real point of competition?"

"To win. I didn't give up 30 minutes of my life teaching you how to hold the damn thing for you to waste it trying to get out of losing. Shoot"

"Ladies first." She says then looks pointedly behind her, indicating the 'ladies' to be Will and Allan, who look mildly offended.

Allie raises her eyebrows as Will and Allan raise their bows quickly, taking their shots at the target in quick succession, Allan's landing closer to the bulls eye then Will's.

Allie raises her bow, and Robin is slightly alarmed as a sudden smirk arises on her face, but the smirk is gone in an instant as her not-so healed arms sting. She draws back the string with force and let's go.

Her arrow is almost a perfect center shot, only slightly to the left. There is a popping sound as the three men present let their mouths drop open, as the shot should not have been that perfect from a beginner.

"Who taught you to shoot?" stammers out Allan, letting his long bow droop in his hand at his loss.

Allie points lazily at Robin.

"About 30 minutes ago. I almost killed you all. And you laughed at me Allan I think you would have remembered. Does that mean I win?" she nods towards the target, and Robin nods slowly.

"Wonderful. I believe it is only fair for me to laugh at you for losing to a beginner which either means Robin's teaching has improved, or I have talent."

Allan swears angrily and trudges away, brushing past Allie who delivers an evil smirk in his direction. Will follows Allan only he is much more supportive, patting Allie on the shoulder and warning her that she may hear Allan practicing in the night, because he hates losing.

And then it is only Robin and Allie, and Robin is smiling in a knowing way.

"How long have you known how to shoot? No beginner can make a shot like that."

"I have known how to shoot a bow for exactly 30 minutes. But I will say that in the dungeon, I do currently hold the record for killing 45 flies by throwing rocks at them, in the course of an hour. A bow and target? Childs play."

Robin pulls the arrows from the target and takes a shot of his own, landing it dead center on the first try, then splitting the arrow down the middle on the second.

She watches as he shoots with deadly accuracy. He knows she is watching, content to observe, silent and waiting, grateful for the presence.

After he shoots about 6 arrows he turns around to smile at her to only find she is not there. At first surprised by how he did not hear her leave, he turns back to the target and continues shooting. Several minutes pass andhe can only begin to assume that she has gone to bug Allan about his losing, or maybe run her hand through the flames of their fire, which they have told her many times not to do, but she continues to relish in the burns that appear on her hand, as if testing herself to see if she can still withstand pain as she did before.

Robin knows she isn't forgetting the dungeon…


	5. Chapter 5

_A/N Okay so there could be some jostling forward and backwards in time from now on, because having a consistent timeline is no fun right? ;)Oh! And contains flashbacks to Allie's time with Gisborne. Leave a review on the way out plz!_

Three days after Allie learns to shoot, she hurts herself with an arrow by accident. Well, Allan hurts her with an arrow by accident. Allan, the normal man that he is, had spent two nights practicing, and now called a rematch between him and Allie, sure of himself that he would emerge victorious.

It is when they come traipsing down to the small valley, Allie bleeding from the shoulder and Allan apologizing profusely, that they see a noticeable change in Allie's behavior.

"The right foul git shot me."

"I did not! It was an accident, and I said I was sorry."

"Yeah, more like sorry you lost. And you could have at least let me pull it out myself, but no you had to half drag me down the hill because you were afraid I would pull it out wrong."

"Well I am sorry for caring about you personal blood levels, but I didn't exactly plan on stopping you from bleeding out again."

Djaq got up and pulled the arrow, half broken and blood smattered, out of Allie's shoulder. Allie barely notices this, and instead looks at Allan hard.

"Say it."

"Oh god don't make me. Please, anything but that."

"The deal was the loser would have to tell the truth about the winner when it comes to archery. Now do it. I won fair and square and you shot me, so that gives me even further grounds to hear you say it."

Allan opens his arms.

"Allison is better at archery then I am. Her form is spot on even after only two lessons, and her aim surpasses that of anyone else here, excluding Robin. I am jealous of her skill and only hope that one day I can be as good as her." He sits down and glares up at her.

"Happy?"

"Very."

Allie makes to walk away, off into the woods which she has begun doing more and more, with her now almost healed legs, but Djaq calls her back.

"You aren't thinking of walking off with that shoulder are you?"

"Djaq I have lived through far worse, and you have said yourself that in the conditions I was in, I should have died several times over but I didn't. This flesh wound poses no bigger problem than a broken finger or swollen eye."

"Yes I did say that, and you have been conscious during my long and boring speeches about _infection _and how it could kill even you and your… miracle of an immune system. Now at least let me have a proper look at it."

Allie twitches, actually _twitches, _one of her eyelids convulsing, making to close, the muscle inside pushing downward.

"Djaq. No." And with that she half walks away, turning around to make sure no one is following.

Robin looks at Will, who had told Robin about their conversation in Nettlestone.

"Do you think…?" Will trails off watching the place where Allie disappeared over the crest of the hill.

"She remembers. She's made a connection. Let her go. If she isn't back by nightfall, we'll split up and look for her okay?"

Robin manages to keep his voice cool and calm but, deep down, his insides are twisting like adders, worried about his friend.

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX

_I can feel his kicks coming quicker now; the toe of his boot smashing into my ribcage, which now seems more like a collection of glass then actual bones. I can feel the cool stone of the room I am in, cold against my cheek. This room is familiar but not my cell, the place he takes me when he is in a mood to wait for my transport. When he is in a bad mood we often don't make it here, his patience worn thin from a hard day of doing whatever it is he does, so he hurts me in my cell, in front of Helen and Dean, who simply sit there silently. They know if they boo or talk they will receive my treatment as well. This room is more equipped for torture then my cell though, and I am in here more often then not. I remember the stuffy air, thick with the smell of dirt and sweat, mixed together with the smell of smoke and rotting flesh, it's dark stone walls, featureless except for torches in their brackets, grainy and solid, a room. Simply a room… _

_The Sheriff walks behind Gisborne, looking down at me from his angle. I try to control my heart rate, as I know if that starts to speed up then the fear will follow it, the fear that always blooms in my brain when the Sheriff accompanies Guy. The fear that swallows me whole and devours all sense I have left._

"_She doesn't talk does she Gisborne?" Guy sweeps his hair out of his face, also looking at me._

"_No. I don't think I have heard her say a word yet." _

_Guy picks up his sword, and I wait, trying to force away the tears of pain from my eyes, knowing the will only cut deeper if he sees me cry._

_The Sheriff instead pulls the sword away from Gisborne, waving it around like a flag, the lethal metal glinting at me sinisterly in the dim light of the room. _

_The blade trails smoothly around my ear, just deep enough to draw blood, creating a bloody circle. The Sheriff bit his tongue._

"_Is she deaf?" _

"_I really wouldn't know my Lord. The physicians seem to think she can hear."_

"_Deaf mute? That would explain why she doesn't talk. Does she scream?" he looks at Guy almost with hope in his eyes, as if praying to whatever twisted god this little man prays to, that I do. _

"_She does scream my lord."_

"_Goooood… Very good_."

_And then the blade begins digging into my calf, and is twisted violently, its blade tickling my bone as it passes through my flesh with ease…_

I have to think, sit down somewhere dark and cold and think. Try to remember that I am not in my cell, that the things I see in the forest are not really there, a cell door, a man clad in leather, a dagger in the ground…

I can almost hear the laughing; an echo in my ears, the high tones a memory. I pass through the forest, not really watching where I am going, climbing over rocks and dodging trees. I can feel the subtle sting on my shoulder from the arrow Allan shot me with. It was all too similar… A man, taller than I am, inflicting pain upon me, alone in a place where no one can hear me scream…

The laugh in my ears grows louder and I shake my head to push it away, back into the folds of my head, into a place where forgotten things go, where things of malice and ominous intentions breed their spawn, where they nestle themselves on the inner workings of my brain, infecting pleasant memories with their bloodlust, spreading like sickness, tormenting like darkness.

I see Gisborne walking around in the forest; I see his dark figure hiding behind trees, waiting to sneak up on me.

"Poor little Pet… Lost and Alone…always Alone…"

My legs begin burning with the unpleasant feeling of weakness or exhaustion, so I sit on a rock, pulling my knees in to my chest, curling around myself so that the memories that walk among me might not scream their warnings so loud, will not speak to me in such harsh tones, will not repaint themselves on the inside of my skull, where their artwork had only just begun to fade…

But even as I sit here, as darkness slowly begins to creep up on the sun, I know that once all light fades, I will be back in my cell, a dark and cold place where you can smell your neighbor and hear the screams from long ago hanging in the air…

Around me the forest is _alive._

Birds sing their final songs as the sun begins to set, trees casting long blade like shadows on the forest floor, the air almost adopting the orange light , and the sun, it's warm fingers casting long shadows onto trees, painting the sky scarlet, deeper and redder then blood itself…

Around me the forest is _alive._

But inside, I am dead.

XxXxXxXxXxXxX

"Okay so whoever finds her, don't make her do anything she doesn't want to, if she wants to stay where she is just sit there with her, listen if she talks, answer if you know what to say."

"Why can't we just knock her over the head like we've done before?"

"Allan you of all people should not be raising a weapon to her. You were in fact as I recall the one that spurred on this… whatever you want to call this. She spent 7 years having no control over anything, unable to make pain stop or have any effect on anything. We've bee-"

"Robin let's face it, we've been damn lucky this hasn't happened before. We all knew the way she talked about it so calmly was wrong and eerie, and she was just trying to bury old memories. We've all seen the way she twitches in her dreams. She can't forget, not on her own. So let's go help her."

They all set off in different directions, some with torches, and some without, looking up at every tree and into every nook they can find, knowing that she'll want something behind her, so as to not be sneaked upon from behind. The last beams of the sun begin to die on the footpath that Will is taking, though some sun still shines on Robin's back, as he is more eastern then the others. John holds his torch higher, so as to cast it's light farther, whereas Allan doesn't need one at all, but it is Much who falls first, due to unnecessary clambering over a patch of boulders.

Minutes then hours pass, all men (Djaq remained at camp if Allie returned in the night) searching in vain for her.

She has not moved, nor plans to, as she sees dark figures moving in the blackness, though somehow she knows it is one of the lads she trusts, she closes her eyes tight anyway, trying to push the laughter and the skull numbing headache from her head.

Shadows growl into the night as they always did, they move as wraithlike monsters in the darkness, the seeping, intoxicating darkness, the kind that slides under doorframes and clouds up a room like fog, no, like smoke…

The darkness groans as it presses against her tighter, and she presses in on herself tighter as well, as the vice grip of loneliness, fear and most of all, recollection begins to suck away all the air and at last, she is fighting…

Fighting to forget…

XxXxXxXxXxXxX

_I hear water drops plopping down into a puddle from the rusty pipe in the corner, each drop like a blade, digging into my ears. I stare roughly into the beam of sunlight that shines in through the small window streaming into my eyes and stabbing into my retina like knives. There is silence in the dungeon, everyone quiet, even Dean and Helen, who stare at me concernedly. Everyone knows that they shouldn't talk to me within an hour of reentering my cell, god, after 6 years, they better. _

_Helen knows I'm sick. Some kind of flu or cold, but she sees it through the metal bars and 3 foot gap that separates our cells. The harsh and cold sweat that begins to crawl down my face and the blinding searing heat that lives in the rest of my body, seem to debate about who shall take control of my immune system, but frankly I am too distant to care. My limbs ache from the beating they got, and blood still runs thick and wet into my mouth, its coppery taste revolting and unpleasant._

_I stare into the harsh light of day, which is the only glimpse we get of it down in the slums, the separate dungeon for people who will spend life down here. When it does glow through the dank and rather foul smelling cells, I often stare at it as I do now, wondering what life would be like if I had never come to this place, but then I remember that I will probably never get out of here, so I just sit there and imagine…_

_Helen looks at me from across the cell, prepared to say something. Well when I mean say I mean communicate non-verbally… _

_Then with a sudden wave of nausea, the sun light from the window is gone, and I am enveloped in blackness, a slow fire beginning to light itself where the broken shards of bone in my legs are, wrenching a groan from my throat, which turns steadily into a scream, as everything begins to numb and I cannot feel anything… _

_I know I must be dying…_

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX

She doesn't look alive. She simply sits there curled around herself, muttering some words over and over, eyes closed and she is rocking back and forth gently, as if the motion repeated enough times will stop all the badness in the world.

I walk towards her, almost wishing I had brought a torch, but then again Robin and John were the only ones who did.

She seems almost invisible, and had it not been for the cold of mist that rose around her head every time she exhaled, I wouldn't have seen her at all, would have just passed by like the other miles I have walked through to find her.

"Allie? Are you there?" I know she is there but I'll give her the benefit of the doubt, so she can try and pretend she isn't there, but she doesn't stop rocking or muttering, if anything it intensifies, the rocking and whispering faster.

"Allie…" I walk over to her, leaves crunching under my shoes, and I sit on the rock beside her, and wait for any kind of sign she knows I'm there.

I don't get one. I simply sit there for a few minutes without moving, watch her sway and listen to the mumbling. I become quickly aware of her shivering, so I try and put my arm around her, to pull her in and share my body heat, but she pulls away as if burned by my fleeting touch, muttering something about murder and blood.

"Allie please, say something that makes sense, anything, say the sky is blue."

Nothing.

XxXxXxXxXxXxXx

I am numb.

Numb with fear; fear that I am actually back in the dungeons, fear that this may have all been a dream my subconscious crafted in a fever induced sleep.

Numb with pain; mental pain that burns and wrenches shadowy memories into the light, forcing me to relive things most unpleasant, stab wounds and sickness, burns and tears, hollow cries and murderous fears.

Numb with _nothing_; with the knowledge that I am weak, that the arrow in my shoulder caused me pain, and had I been in the dungeons I would have swallowed the pain and disregarded it, but here in the forest, it hurts. Everything hurts. The sun on the back of my neck in the morning burns and tingles, the rain on my face is a needle jab, walking is a method of torture, aching and throbbing.

Everything hurts here.

I stopped seeing the world in front of me about 3 hours ago, the forest flowing gently into blackness, becoming a fuzzy imprint, no longer providing actual sight. I kept my eyes closed never the less, only listening as Will approaches me. _Ignore it_, I think, _then he will leave and you can be alone again, maybe…_

But he doesn't, he doesn't leave just sits there and shushes me, tries to coax speech out of me, asking me questions, telling me it's okay.

There is nothing, nothing but the blackness.

Gisborne walks around Will and I, the leather on his shoulders creaking as he flexes, his gloves sticking to the hilt of his sword, a sneer pulling at the sides of his thin mouth.

"Do you remember the first scar?" I can almost feel the scar in question tingling in response to the specters whisper, halfway down my jaw line, thin and white as moonlight.

"I remember the first scar, and the way you whimpered, but you didn't cry. You didn't cry until the third day, and not in my presence. You cried alone and quietly at that. I had such fun breaking you."

Breaking. He said it as if it was just a word, as if it held no deeper meaning. Broken: To be shattered crushed, or to be unusable for its original purpose. Was I broken? Is that what he really thought of me?

"Shut up." I whisper, and Will looks at me startled, and I can see from the corner of my eye, having now opened it to watch Gisborne's approach, worry creeping upon the young Englishman's face. He can't be much older than I can he? We must be at least within a year of each other age, and yet we both had knowledge beyond our years. His of a greater good, mine of bloodshed and pain.

We are not that different.

I recall one of the first things I said to him: I speak, I sneeze, I yawn, I scream, I breathe, I bleed I hate, I feel, I remember, I hurt, I listen, I watch, I sleep, I eat, I drink, I deal, I survive.

I remember his response.

I remember how different we are… We aren't really…

"You told me once that we weren't that different. Talk to me and remind yourself of that."

My brain begins to act at its own accord forming words beyond the memories, words that mean nothing to me, spurred on by Will's startled look.

"People die every day Will…"

"Sort of realized."

"Then why the hell am I still around? I've seen people have their hearts ripped out where they stood, seen people begging for mercy before taking their own life. They were some of the best people I ever knew. Those people deserved to be here. Do I? I don't expect you to answer truthfully. I mean what else is an Englishman supposed to say to someone who he found quivering on a rock after being shot?"

"Well, you don't exactly fall under normal terms, so I'll defy ordinary Englishman reaction." He grasps my hand firmly in his, "You are a good person. You make people laugh without trying. You bring wisdom to the people who are lucky enough to talk to you. You are amazing Allie, and just because you have seen more pain and sorrow then anyone I have ever met, does not mean for one second, a single moment, that you do not deserve to be here. In fact, because of the sadness and pain and suffering, you deserve to be here more than others, so you can figure out for yourself why outlaws are so plucky. We've got something to fight for Allie, so get the hell up and fight for it with us."

Will nearly passes out from the brilliant smile I give him, and he smiles back as I whisper into the night a thank you, so quiet it sounds like the wind in the dark trees, the ghost of words said long ago, an echo of forgotten proclamations.

The walk back takes almost no time, as Will declares it a race, which he ultimately wins. Everyone else has already been seated, looking tired from their search and yet, I feel no guilt whatsoever from their exhaustion.

I point at Allan with a sturdy finger. "You're a right foul git." then I turn to the others, "I'm not even going to try and create some half hearted lie about what happened or why I did it. Sorry if I inconvenienced your day, which is actually a lie because I think you lot needed the exercise, you haven't been out of this bloody forest in 3 days. Now, goodnight."

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX

There is a silence that follows Allie's words, so thick, so still and undisturbed the outlaws are unnerved. Then Robin begins laughing, so violently he hits Much across the face. Then the rest of the outlaws begin laughing because the aftermath of Allie's words is so intoxicating, some poor passerby may have mistaken them for drunkards from the nearest bar. The laughing subsides until some poor laugh ridden soul belts out: "You just got Allied." And the laughing and giggling ensues again, and a rather tired looking Allie comes over the crest of the hill, where apparently she was sleeping, and gives Djaq a pointed look.

"I thought you of all people would be mature. But just as I begin sleeping I start hearing some kind of cow in a lot of pain, then that cow is being brutally tortured, and then I identify the noise as 7 outlaws laughing. Normal laughing sounds happy, but your laughing is like an illness ravaged village with dying bovines and tortured swine. Ju-just shut up! John! Stop laughing!" But no, nobody stops laughing, in fact everyone is laughing.

"Oh that's right, everyone just keep laughing because I am the funniest damn thing since… I don't know small pox?"

"No but you are the funniest thing that's ever happened to us."

With a half hearted sigh she gives a half hearted sigh, and smirks at them.

"If you fools think I'm funny without joking, Want to hear a real joke?"

"We're not children."

"You act like them though." She sits down cross legged on the floor and adorns a rather serious look.

"Three men enter a pub, the first ignorant, the second wise, the third content. The three men sit together, and begin talking of their travels, and upon beginning the conversation, the content man begins laughing, as the ignorant man boasts of his unmatched strength. Enraged by the content man, the first man kills the third. The first man is then pulled down into the depths of hell, and he stares up at the second man, who looks at the body of the third man. The first man remembers something he had forgotten, and makes to yell out to the second man, and manages to screech out the words before the demons take him. The first man dies. The second man, the wisest of them all, is arrested for the murder of his two companions, and waits in his dirty cell for three days, awaiting his execution. A priest comes to listen to the man's confessions, asking him why he killed with such bloodlust. The wise man simply says he did not kill anybody. The priest does not believe him, and asks him the same question again. But before he gets an answer, the wise man rips the cross from around the priest's neck and thrusts it into his eye, ultimately dying. But just as he takes his last breath, he remembers the first man's words: No one is innocent, but crimes do not always come with consequences."

Everyone looks aghast, not at all expecting a morbid story.

"I thought you said you were telling us a joke." Says Djaq.

"I did."

"That was a bloody terrible joke." Says Allan his mouth open, "I was expectin' something funny."

"Not all jokes are followed by laughter; there is no laughter where I come from, only screams. And besides," she gets up, and turns around walking away slowly, "It seems I can sleep now. My jokes are obviously wiser then I am. You stopped laughing…"

_A/N well this one is a lot longer, but I am not exactly pleased with it, I sort of wanted to underline how memories never leave us, how the past follows us, and the future runs from us. Hope you liked it anyway!_


	6. Chapter 6

Allie was used to seeing people have nightmares. The dungeons had been riddled with nightmares that walked the halls of castle, and even more that prowled the sleeping mind, feeding on thoughts and twisting them into horrors. It truly was something she was fascinated by, just simply watching them twitch and mumble, wondering how they could feel so tortured in their own little heads, and how they felt fake pain that they thought seared and burned. She had known her share of these nightmares, known their petty fears and attempts to scare her, though she had grown out of them when the first scar began to heal.

But she could see Robin hadn't yet grown out of his.

He watched him now as he lay there on the ground, the blanket he had been using tossed aside by its user, his head rolling from side to side on the ground as though he was shaking his head, declining whatever horrors the nightmare was offering him.

Nightmares always gave you a choice of what you would see. It was a rule in the business of terror, that the choice is theirs. Embrace it and decide carefully, as the next corner will be of dread'smaking.

Robin convulsed on the ground, and Allie sat there watching him silently, listening to the peaceful sounds of other outlaws breathing, dreaming of endless forests or being chased, not troubled by fears, not followed by monsters, and not running from each in their own turn as it would be like escaping the sound of thunder, a hopeless battle for a fool.

Robin mumbled, and breathed in quickly, his sharp intake of breath slicing through the silent night air like a dagger. She saw the pain on his face, saw his features harden, his whole body turning to double over on his left side, as though covering it in protection. She could see the rest of the sleeping bodies and how calmly they slept, oblivious to the mental pain their leader was suffering, his dreams things none of them understood.

_If you could dream my dreams, if you could hear my thoughts, if you could live my life, see the devil in the water as I do,_ she remembered saying one day after being checked over by a physician under Gisborne's watchful eye_, see the fears I've seen and hear screams that echo in my head, you would know Hell._

Did outlaws know these things? Allie doubted this, they said she was wise when they thought she was sleeping, meaning they were taken aback upon being taught the lessons she could teach.

She smiled ruefully as Robin started awake, looking around wildly with a crazed look glinting in his eyes, illuminated by the fire she kept burning.

_Lesson #1: Fear is not weakness. To know fear is to be strong. _

"I thought it was Allan's turn to keep watch." Said Robin sleepily, coming to sit with her in front of the fire that burned brightly, its embers glowing in the darkened forest.

"I always watch." She stared deeply into the flames of the fire, its flames coiling and twisting around each other like snakes, smoke curling in the air like storm clouds.

"You always watch…" Robin repeated quietly glaring into the darkness of the forest.

"Do you often dream of war?" she asked. She knew it had to be war, a solider three cells over often dreamt in such a way, only he screamed curses at Saracens, throwing punches into the air as he slept.

Around them the forest was sleeping, its trees breathing softly with every breeze, the ground still, and no animals were to be found, the only sound in the entire forest the crackling of wood in a fire, and the whispering of two outlaws.

Around them the forest was sleeping, but they were awake, watchful horses at the edge of the herd.

Robin did not look at her.

"Often yes. "

Allie looked up at him seriously, her eyes softly drawing his gaze towards her, fear pulling at his face in a way that remained familiar to her though less often viewed, as though intent on following her through her life, never letting her forget when she saw it on dozens of faces lit only by burning torches…

"Fear is not weakness Robin. If you see the Devil in the mirror when you should see yourself, you know strength. To be strong is to conquer enemies, not to walk life not fearing nightmares, with enemies at every turn." She looked into his eyes harder, keeping his gaze captive, leaning in and whispering in his ear.

"Some things are meant to be feared."

Robin was silent for a moment, contemplating her words in the night, looking back to his band of outlaws, and how different he and Allie were from the rest, until a question arose in his head, one he had wanted to ask her. He looked at her face, turned as it was so he could only see the right side, was glowing with scars, 8 of them on this side alone, like claw marks on a tree, numerous, abundant. The longest from the corner of her mouth to the corner of her eye, the shortest near her ear, about a long as his thumb nail.

"What do you fear?"

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX

_What do I fear he asks me, as though I could say it in one word. I fear the light of day and what it may bring, and the thump of an arrow finding its target. I fear the breeze rustling through the trees, its noise once forgotten then recalled. I fear the shadow that was my father, the drunkard man in every bar, the demon with an angel's face. I fear the rotting corpse of a child, such purity taken and left to burn. I fear Gisborne, and the man that follows him to my cell, the one who views like a captive animal._

_I already know what he fears, as he wears them on his sleeve as if they are a trophy to be gaped at._

_He fears a world full of hate, and that his fight is one not worth his time. He fears the death of an absent king and the reign of a vulture prince. He fears war, and the death of others. He is selfless, a quality dying in this bright and noisy world. I fear things outside of chaos, and a world lacking pain. Is that wrong? Yes I suppose it must be, as these people seem to enjoy living free of scars more plentiful then stars in the sky. I fear things I do not understand, why my father preferred drink to his daughter, why the sun has never shone on me in memory like this before. _

_I know pain. _

_I know suffering._

_And yet again I ask myself, what does he know beyond his sunlit world of men who help others? _

_I wonder how long he would last where I come from. _

_Where nightmares walk, and dreams are the ones feared in the darkness. _

_Where happiness is only a word…_


	7. Chapter 7

The sun beat down on the roofs of small huts and cottages, making the dusty road glow brightly, light shining on the faces of children and hard working men, horses pawing the ground restlessly, and people bailing hay in the hot noon air.

And Allie was terrified.

Not only had Robin known she would be scared, oh no. He enforced it.

So now she stood very, very close to a fence, holding it for support as her breathing became even more ragged and choppy then it already was from walking on not so healed legs, a wild crazed sort of look in her eye, and an air of being rather uncomfortable with the situation.

If you asked Allie, she would say it was the noise.

If you asked Will he would say it was the fact that if she looked to her right, she would see the place Gisborne went home to every night.

And if you asked Robin, he would say it was because she was around children.

But whoever you asked they would say she was indeed scared. She quivered in an almost pathetic way, froze like a hound that had scented some game when anyone she did not know walked by her, and nearly started crying when a little boy asked her why she looked so funny, not because his comment hurt her feelings, but because she could not control his comings or goings, nor the words that flowed unfiltered from his mouth in an almost unpreventable stream.

And so she was scared.

And everyone felt incurably bad for her. Except Robin. Not that Robin is cold hearted, because he is not, but because he knows she has to socialize, and damn it he will force her to in ways less terrifying. So he asked Marian to come and help.

Upon first glance, Allie seemed like some kind of human squirrel. She was jittery, high wired, and utterly, utterly twitchy. Will and Much were trying to make conversation with her, while Allan told Marian her sob story. And boy, a sob story it was. First completely taken aback by the monster Guy had really turned out to be, a demon wearing the face of a nobleman, and then all at once a sudden sense of betrayal began settling in the pit of Marian's stomach.

And then they met.

"Hello Allie." Marian tried to smile, and look into Allie's eyes but found her gaze drawn to follow the paths of scars that crisscrossed the face of the girl before her. 23 in total, the longest a straight line from hairline to chin, the shortest an inch long on her eyebrow. But the most gruesome seemed to be the most recent, barely healed and only just adopting a strange pinkish sheen, and almost impossible not to look at considering the fact it was actually over one of her eyes, slanted and traversing the lid and reaching its crest over the bones, it stared in its full glory every time Allie blinked.

Marian could not help but imagine Guy performing these heinous acts.

"H-hello Marian."Allie flinched as two woman walked by, talking about their husbands and drinking, but turned back to Marian as soon as they passed, trying to smile as much as the scar over her lip would permit.

"Don't even bother not looking. I'm used to it, Allan doesn't even bother hiding the fact that he looks at my scars anymore."

Marian shook herself out of the depths of the damaged tissue looking purposefully into Allie's eyes, muttering a hasty apology. Allie shook it away as if it was a fly buzzing in her ear, saying it was nothing new to her, just forget it.

But Marian couldn't help but feel bad, really, she had been in and out of the dungeons before, and had remained ever ignorant to what Guy had been doing down there the hours he seemed to evaporate. Allie completely ignored the fact that anyone was talking to her, which many of the outlaws were, trying to distract her from the world that surrounded her, noisy and bright, but as taught in the dungeons, she seemed to harbor an impenetrable focus.

And so she was scared.

"What is it Allie?" asked Marian, unsure of whether she really wanted to know, but felt that asking one question would help prevent her from asking the question she really wanted to know, but was afraid to ask.

Allie looked at her with unfocused eyes for a second, blinking a little harder, keeping her eyes shut tighter and breathing out sharply before opening her eyes again.

"The noise reminds me." Her voice was higher and faster than it was when she greeted Marian, and as the world moved around the frightened woman, noises seemed to become louder. Allie turned back to Marian her hair whipping and hitting her face. Allie turned away again.

Overhead the sun became covered in thin wispy clouds, sending the village into shadow.

Allie closed her eyes firmly against the world, clenching the fence a little tighter, so hard her hands shook, and Will stepped a little closer, a looming and protective shadow, ready to intervene. Marian looked over at Robin, her face asking all the questions words could not: _Why are you doing this? Why don't you help her?_ Robin simply looked at Marion. _I have to do this; _his expression seemed to say eyebrows high and expectant, mouth thin, eyes narrowed, _it's the only way to get through to her._

Allie began shaking violently as a child yelled after his friend, running by quickly and brushing Allie's leg and all the members of the gang, Djaq in front, began moving closer, but Robin whistled. They looked around at him, and he shook his head, _no. _

Around them, people were moving past, working, talking to one another, children running around, the noise not even intruding, only a little above chatter, noise Marian found she missed when she visited the outlaws in the forest, and found that things were unnervingly silent if there was anything below this level of noise in her day to day life, as it had quickly become the drumbeat of her existence the heartbeat that she heard forever and would continue to search for, forever. It was a part of her.

Not Allie's though. Not really knowing what her existence beat to the tune of, Marian wondered if she, as Allan had said was 'fixable'. Broken she was, it was plain to see as she shook against the rough wood, a very thin almost invisible sheen of sweat covering her scarred up face, lips forming the same silent words, ignoring the world and concerned faces of people she knew and passersby, or oblivious to them, reminded of whatever it was that had shattered her by the normality of life, ignoring Will who was apparently the one Robin had chosen for her to trust, as he whispered very close her, but still careful not to touch her, fearful of what he would interrupt if he did? Marian didn't know.

Marian was scared. Scared about even thinking about what Allie was thinking, scared about her purpose here, why Robin wanted her to talk with this person, who clearly didn't want to be here, in the world, possibly even alive.

And if Marian was scared, she didn't even want to know what Allie was feeling.

XxxxxxxxxxXxXxxX

_Shallow cuts and bruises,_

_Dark red blood that oozes, _

_Scars the devil left behind_

_Whispering his words unkind_

_Walking in the shadows_

_Calling to the crows_

_To pick away_

_The useless fray_

_Till only the sins remain._

_God the knight that never came_

_To leave behind those gone insane_

_To meet with those worth while _

_And in the darkness the devil laughs_

_And calls to play his spawn _

_And as the demons deal their wrath _

_The devil plays his pawn_

_He pulls away a single hair _

_And holds it forth without way_

_And in an instant _

_Without assistance _

_A child is done away. _

I can't help but try and shut out all the noise, the chatter turning to screaming in my head.

_A child lost, a mother not, a father knows what to say_

'_Go to hell' he screams at the devil who smiles away_

_Away with another the devil says 'Haven't been in a while'_

_Licking teeth with an evil smile_

'_Perhaps a visit to see_

_The very best of me_

_And with it shall I bring_

_A punishment so lonely_

_That only one can sing' _

And as all the noise begins to pull me into a sweat, as I remember thinking of Dean and Helen and their deaths on my behalf, of the smell of rotting flesh, of everything they did for me in vain, of when I was finally driven to the edge, of when I lay dying on a cold stone floor while Gisborne sang, as I began to slowly go insane, unsure whether I was awake or not, my pain constant in wake and sleep,

'_And shall I give to certain folks_

_A very happy plain_

_Where people on this solemn earth_

_Go without knowing pain_

_And hell is simply a word_

_Where children laugh _

_And days are half_

_Of the happiness _

_You see_

_The devil's prize_

_And god's cries_

_That echo in your empty heads' _

_The devil laughs and turns away, _

_Unable to finally say_

_That tomorrow none remain, _

_That finally the cycle ends_

_And God has none to gain…_

As people died and I lay thinking, as light shone through the window, as my bones throbbed and all was quiet, not a single noise, as weapons clinked and keys rattled, and the Sheriff simply laughed, as the Devil spoke to me in hushed tones, and God deserted me, as the world cracked open to pull me down, as I drowned in rivers of blood, was crushed under tumbling mountains, burned in the endless fires of the dungeons,

_But no I can't, the devil thought, as finally he stopped_

_The more I kill the less there will be to find on the rising top_

_Less for soon here after_

_Less to kill _

_And less there will_

_Be for hell to eat_

_As all things end up the same_

_No longer left, no game to play_

_And in the end as all things do_

_They dry up like creeks in June_

_And death begins to claim. _

_The jaws that swallow_

_Hell without name_

_Devil's game, God's song. _

_And everything ends up wrong_

_As finally the tears do fall_

_Answering the final call_

Every cut, every tear, every scar, every single last scar that makes its mark, as every ache finds its place, every burn that blackens, every headache that punctures my thoughts with its icy claws, every word spoken to me since my escape, every ray of sunlight, every dungeon rule broken, as these people I do not know try and try and _try _to make me a home, try to make me feel safe,

_The devil's game, God's final song,_

_The wind blows dust away…_

Every single noise. Every breath. Every moment Robin keeps me here against my will, hiding what he is doing to me from Marian, as he tries to force me to talk to her, hiding that when I tried to run away he grabbed me and held me until I stopped fighting him, because I am weak, weak, weak. Every moment that passes brings me closer, and I know he has no idea what he is doing, no idea what is happening in my mind, not a single worry I might come out wrong from this _torture. _He doesn't know. He will never know.

_Ashes of souls, brittle as twigs_

_Dust of the bones, of skeleton rigs_

Because as normal as this may be to him, I can never simply do this, just stop, stop, STOP!

_As the suns rise in his losing eyes_

_The devil laughs hollow cries._

And I can hear the whispering in the world, Will's voice in my ear saying the name they gave my broken heart over and over , Allie, Allie, Allie, so often it is only a word. Not me. No… I was someone else, someone stronger then I am, someone who would not be like this, who would feel the warmth in Will's breath where I feel nothing, would feel the wood on their hands where I touch a river of blood, and laugh into the wind where I scream to the heavens to just end it,

'_Not today my faithful friends_

_Another date's soon amends'_

This world demands my broken heartbeats, to make me dream, to feel each scar as it pulls at my skin, and every last step my feet have taken. Another person would feel. But I am not another, but the bearer of many burdens, listener to the world, and the demon heaven sent forth.

'_For us to play with screams and bruises_

_For us to sing to blood that oozes' _

As I feel the sword on my face making its final cut, and hear the clanging on the door, the burning in my eyes as the sun glows bright, as Will's voice catches, as I feel earth on my knees as I collapse,

'_For us to leave some scars behind_

_To whisper final words unkind' _

As all the warmth in the air vanishes and is replaced with cold,

'_For us to waltz through the shadows_

_For us to call to the crows' _

As Gisborne's pale eyes look in at me from my closed lids,

'_And soon we'll pick away_

_The useless fray_

_Until only sins remain,_

_So fear not Satan's spawn_

_Another day will dawn_

_When God will not know what to say_

_When the devil walks, and demons play_

_We will be the dust in the wind_

_Forever dealing deserving sin…'_

I open my eyes, and see nothing.


	8. Chapter 8

"I'm sorry."

Robin said it for about the dozenth time.

(Silence)

There was always silence on the other end, Allie's end. She just looked at him with glazed eyes, innocence clouding everything in Robin's head. He had in a way, made her small and weak, like she had been for so long, again, taken away her everything. It had been so simple…

He was alone with her. Not at the camp, close to it, but not quite there, separate from everything else.

Guilt. It ripped at Robin with savage teeth, made him feel cold and alone and terrible, and god, just the way she looked at him made him feel its pounding in his head.

"I'm sorry ok?" All he had done anyway was try and get her used to people.

She cocked her head at him, as though confused by his words. Robin could see the pain in her absent eyes, the confusion about _something_, the absence, and the lostness. How gone the person behind those eyes really was.

Allie was not there.

As though she had simply fallen away into the despair of nothing, into the hollow and empty, echoing caves of Hell.

XxXxXxX

_He looks at me. He feels sad. _

_Around us the forest is alive. _

_Birds coo to each other, leaves rustle in the soft wind that blows through the trees, and the silence between his words. His words that fall on deaf ears. _

_But what does being alive really mean?_

_XxXxXxX_

Why wouldn't she just talk to him?

"Talk to me."

Nothing.

"Ok, You have the power here so tell me something, because now I'm angry," He grabbed her arm ferociously, and throwing her to the ground outside, her weight squashing leaves with a crunch, something in her back cracking.

"Who are you?" He spat on the ground at his feet, as she looked at him in horror.

"Are you that girl without a name Will found running in the forest?"

AS he took a step forward, she shuffled farther away from him, crawling on the ground like snake, spreading her venom on the floor.

"Are you the drunk's daughter, whose name you can't even remember?"

She propped herself on an elbow, and stared up at him in total shock at his anger and hostility.

"Or are you something else?"

He drew his sword, but almost immediately he thought he had taken his act too far, after all, it was just an act to get her to talk to him, provoke words to come spilling from her lips. Trying to scare her even more so maybe her walls would tumble down and she would… do something…

But she… looked almost happy to see his blade, a small smile rising on her face, forcing back scars.

_I know this game_ her smile seemed to say.

Rain began falling from high and twisting clouds, like tears, like the tears of thousands, like the transparent blood of more. Falling slowly then faster.

"Use it." She said to him, her smile gone, and replaced by utter seriousness, her words speaking a dare.

"W-What?"

What was she asking of him, as she began to get wetter and wetter, in the tears the sky was crying , in the blood the clouds were bleeding?

What had she just asked of him?

"Use it. Make it quick." She looked through him.

She was asking him for death…

XxXxXxX

_Nothing physical could ever compare to the pain of this. _

_The pain of asking him to kill me. _

_I was done and worn out years ago, after beating back the demons of death, of cheating the devil more times than I can count and fighting pain in every way I could, but now… now as he looks at me, his face dawning to understand the horrors of what I ask of him, I realize now that the largest pain that could ever exist, is the pain of knowledge. _

_There is nothing here for me. I know that now. No purpose or pain, no sorrow or anger, no happiness, no love or lust, no freedom or death. _

_There is nothing here for me. And I don't think there ever was. Does the something you want come and go like the sun? if I miss that fabled something I look for, will it come back and let me board it and take me somewhere else? Or if I miss it, do I never have another chance to find it? _

_The something I need. _

_It's not here for me is it…?_

_For years I remained bent on the fact that there had to be something better then what I was living. But now, as I see that the outside world is even less forgiving then the tip of a sharp blade, I do not want this anymore. _

_I want to sleep without nightmares, wake without pain, and run without fear of being caught. _

_But I cannot find it in this world, not where the sun will always rise, and where the darkness is gone far too soon. _

_I hate living…_

_XxXxXx_

"Go ahead. Make it easier on me."

The rain is falling faster now than it did before, soaking right done to Robin's skin, chilling him, drowning down his worry in a churning sea of rain.

"Wha- No. No, not you, not now, no."

"Kill. Me." She hissed at him, showing him the shiny wet skin of her neck, exposed to allow for an easier cut. Like she knew how exactly the taking of a life was done.

_She would after all, _Thought Robin_, from where she's comes from._

"Allie, this isn't right you shou- "

She looked up at him, such pain and emptiness in her losing eyes, rain falling from her lashes like real tears.

"Who am I Robin? What did you help escape from Gisborne, that day when the sun was shining? Was it that girl whose name I can't remember? Or was it something else. I wasn't me though, not the me I am now, anyways. Was it ever anything at all?" She stood whipping sopping hair from her face to look at him with her losing eyes, the eyes that were losing the final battle, the eyes that had seen more gore and bloodshed and death and poverty and _Hell_ then his ever could. The eyes that looked through his soul to see the man he really was, the eyes that had seen the nightmares of a million men and smiled all the way through, were no longer smiling eyes. But instead, empty. And dead. The eyes she had worn in her pain and suffering. The eyes that had never wavered in their strength, the eyes with walls behind them. The eyes one would see fear in, should they look hard enough.

"We saved Allie."

She raised her arms to the glorious rain, letting her limbs fall to her sides limply as they dripped.

"And who was that? Allie's too broken to remember. Don't try and fix her soul, her broken heart has been stabbed too many times to beat anymore, so end it Robin. Finish my story. Or, are you afraid of how it ends? I'm too weak for this Robin; I'm too broken and battered to keep going."

"No Allie, I think you should think about what you're asking for." She laughed coldly at him, and he could not help but fear what her in that moment, as she looked towards the weeping heavens and laughed at his attempts to force sense into her silently twisted mind.

"I'm asking for peace. For the end. For the final breath Gisborne could never give me, for the final blow that he would never allow me to have. I'M ASKING FOR FREEDOM!" She shrieked, grabbing his shoulders and shaking him in the downpour, her scars shining. Her calling eyes. Her sadness in the beautiful rain. Her everything cracking in the beautiful tears.

He threw his sword away, as far as he could, out of sight, out of her reach, out of her temptation to use it, out out out! Make it go, he thought, make her see it's not the way.

"No, I need that…" she pleaded with him, lunging after it, trying to get to it, to end it herself. He grabbed her, but she fought with him with everything she had left in her, from the freezing rain she seemed to draw strength. He grabbed her waist, grabbed her arms, anything he could.

"Kill me, please Robin kill me just end it, and end me! I need to sleep! I need to die! I can't do it anymore! Please please please! KILL ME!" She beat at him with her arms until he grabbed them.

"No! You need to live to see what life is made of, no; you can't die, not after everything. You say you always watch, well watch us then! Watch over us when we sleep, stay awake! Don't die, it's not right it's not the way, God wouldn't want this!"

"GOD ABANDONED ME YEARS AGO YOU FOOL, IN A PLACE WHERE THE DEVIL CAME AND SANG TO ME OUTSIDE MY CELL, AND WHERE I SANG BACK TO IT!"

"That doesn't mean you need to die!"

"ONLY HELL IS LEFT FOR ME ROBIN!"

"You've done nothing to condemn you to that, so Heaven will still be waiting!"

"THEN SEND ME THERE!"

"NO! I CAN'T! YOU NEED TO LIVE!"

"WHY?"

"Because even if I tried to kill you, you would stay alive. Because more than anything you want to live."

"NO, I WANT TO DIE, I NEED TO DIE, I WANT TO GIVE UP AND STOP FIGHTING!"

"No you don't."

She fell into him, sobbing into his chest, the tears of the rain falling from her face, only real tears this time not the tears of the sky.

"I need to die…" She cried into him, her frail shoulders shaking under the arms he had around her, holding her close, as close as he could.

"Why?" He placed his chin onto her sopping hair, the tears of the sky soaking them both.

Around them the forest was crying with her.

The leaves drooped in sorrow, crying the rain as it fell from them onto the dead bodies of the leaves that had been there before them, but now lay dead and wet on the ground. Trees cried rain as it fell from their rough and brown faces onto the ground, rolling down their trunks, and leaving trail of darker wood. Birds hid away their tears, in their hiding holes. Rocks soaked up their sadness with the moss that covered their faces

Around them the forest was weeping.

But really, only she was.

Only a girl who could not remember her name, with her losing eyes and salty tears was crying.

"Kill me…"

"No."

"Please…." She whimpered one final time.

"Please…." Came the final empty whisper…

"Please…"Came the final shattering song…

_A/N Not too fond of this chapter, but I needed Allie to try and get Robin to kill her. I dun broke her, now I got to get them to put her back together again…_


	9. Chapter 9

They follow me around.

They watch me.

They try and convince me to sleep.

Much makes me cook with him, which is a torture in its own sense.

Their attempts at conversation are… disappointing.

It would have been simpler to die…

Darkness falls fast, as though night is urged on by the rumbling clouds above, that spit lightning and crackle with thunder, as though angry or sad. As the night begins to descend, they begin to look fearful. For what? I do not know.

The setting sun is gone unnoticed behind the storm that refuses to lessen or stop, rain falling fast in the thick air that pulls at my breath and suffocates with vice-like hands.

Night falls. And I sleep.

XxXxX

_I cry in the night. It is the second sunset I have seen here. People stare, as though tears are unknown to them, something they have not seen for years. I learned later that they had not seen someone cry for several months. _

_I do not want to be here, I want to go back to Father, even if it means surviving his drunken rambling and the hatred he spreads. _

_Anything is better than here. _

"_You won't get out." Says someone detached from another cage. A dirty brown haired boy, not much older than me, looks over dully, his blue eyes flat. A girl close beside him looks up at me and nods gravely. _

"_I will get out. One way or another." I kick my door. Again. And again. _

"_You won't." Says the girl. I look over at her angrily._

"_I'm not going to die here." I snarl at her. She crawls over closer, her deep brown eyes soft and friendly, but fearful. She stretches a hand out to mine, holding it with more tenderness then I have seen for years. _

"_We all will." She says. _

_Blades cut away at her face, demons crawl from her hands up my arms, into my mouth that is open to scream, Gisborne laughs as he sets fire to my legs, and all at once, there is dirt everywhere._

XxXxX

Waking. It is one of the harder and crueler tortures I have endured over the years. The hope that maybe I am in my cell, where I have a place, and I know what will happen seems so appealing to this… this world.

I do not like it here.

I want it over.

Someone is awake. Someone that is not me.

Someone to watch me no doubt.

"Nightmare?" Comes Robin's cool voice. He sits beside me, huddled around himself farther away from the fire that burns bright and… welcoming… to sit closer to me.

"Yes." I whisper back, heart racing beyond a speed it has ever reached before, sweat cold and thin on my face. The fire dances around the wood it is stocked with, the forked tongues of dragons seeping through the bars of its cage. Orange and yellow meld into one at flames dance in the moist air, the rain finally over.

I want with an unbearable force to jump into it, feel the pain and the endless nothingness that comes with death.

I am tired. I close my eyes to watch the patterns that dance behind my eyelids, wishing for the nothingness that comes with deep sleep. Second to none if I cannot have death.

In the endless silence that stretches out before him and me, it is bridged by a single tear that falls like the weight of an ocean onto the ground between us.

I shed this tear silently, hoping for a different kind of lullaby instead of the crackling fire and his subtle breathing.

And like a child I feel small, and innocent.

I wonder if this is how these people feel each and every day…

XxXxXxX

"Don't touch it."

He slaps my hands away again. The knife glints.

Much and John sing some kind of folk song, drinking the last of the ale they have trying without success t o lighten the mood. Djaq and Allan spar. And Robin, Will and I? Well, they taunt me with an unreachable knife on the stump of an ancient tree, trying to detach me from the death I want.

The fools.

"I need it." I tell him, plead with him. Robin has not smiled once today, his jolly laugh not echoing in the forest. He is serious today, in his quest to help me find life in this… whatever this is.

"No you don't." He tells me again. I reach for it again, but he is faster than I am, grabbing my hands before they can grasp the blade. Will slides closer to me, a hand on my shoulder as I fight Robin's grip for the knife, to _end it end it end it!_

"I need it. I need to end it"

I make another grab for it.

"Don't touch it."

"What if I want to?"

"You don't."

"How could you possibly know what I want?"

Robin squares himself. "I just do. I know that you don't really want to use it."

This fool. My fool.

"How dare you," I say, leaning closer to him, a fight in my eyes and a death on my mind, "How dare you assume you know me and what I want."

He leans even closer, determination in his eyes, ready to fight me. "I know you Allie."

"Do you know? Do you know the stink of a rotting body, the body of a friend outside, their death at your hands? Or the sting of a blade once it hits you across the face, leaving a scar that shall never fade, that will forever remind of what happened? Because that's who I am. Do you know where I come from?"

I stand, Will tries to push me back down to sit but I ignore him.

"A place where a war does not last a single year, but fights on and on until all the soldiers are on the ground. Where every day, every hour and second is when death claims another, where people drop like flies."

I am so close to touching Robin's nose, and I can see his anger and retorts in his steely eyes, and as he accepts my challenge for a fight.

"Where I was only a toy. A play thing to be left, something he could just break if he wanted to, but didn't because he would get… bored." I can feel my argument about why I should end my life running out of steam, falling away, losing momentum as the look on Robin's face changes to shock, as though he is surprised or afraid of what I am saying.

Will gets up suddenly, the chanting of 'The Beggar man's Gig' swings to a halt, and I see Much and John rise and look in awe at me, Djaq and Allan take hasty steps forward.

Will places two steady hands on my shoulders, trying to turn me around. The carpenter boy whispers in my ear.

"Okay Allie… But, before we do anything else, I need you to give Robin the knife."

I look at the blade I have at Robin's throat, feel the death burning in my eyes. I loosen the grip I have on its hilt.

Robin takes the blade I wish for with a steady hand, his cold gaze relaxing.

XxX

Her eyes fill with an unspoken apology, and she falls to her knees, shaking her head and looking at me with such innocence, a look in her eye tells me she didn't even know she had a knife to my throat.

"Help me…"

XxX

Robin pulled Much aside while Will sits with Allie. Much wrung his hat in his hands fidgeting in his usual manner. He never used to be like this, not really. Not before the war…

"Master… Are you alright?" He asked looking over his shoulder like a madman, obviously shaken, " That was… well… that was…"

"She's crumbling Much."

"Yeah well… you can't really blame her can you? She went through years of torture and now she's safe. That's a big change and I don't think she really understands it yet."

Robin nodded watching Allie, Allie breathing, Allie blinking.

He leaned closer to his man servant. "You know what we have to do now…" Robin smiled.

Much looked at him in incredulity. "Oh Master… You can't do this to her…"

"I guess you know what I'm thinking then." Robin started nodding like a drunken fool biting his lower lip.

"You want to bring her back into the castle…."


	10. Chapter 10

I'd never really seen this side of the castle, being stuck in the lowest section of the dungeons and all. Corridors empty, their usual bustle of which was just barely audible from my cell, had stilled in the darkness of night, guards no longer lugging large boots and light weapons up and down the halls.

The windows let in the fresh breeze of night, their view of the courtyard unmatched, and different from the view in the dungeons, where only Dean could see through and only because of his height which Helen had often been jealous of. Torches burn cheerfully up here, whereas they burned blood red in the Hell below, where the screams are now silenced, so as the prisoners below may sleep. I wonder this very second if Walter is down there, the cell next to his empty in my absence, or filled with another prisoner.

I am alone, but for Robin of course who stands alert behind me.

We are not here to take anything.

He just wants me to see, to hear to touch, smell the castle free of smoke and blood, the thick and muddy stench of decay not wafting through the clear air. It is so strange to know that this was once my hated prison as it looks softer when not staring out from behind bars.

I can feel him bristling with worry as he looks around every corner and listens in the thick and empty silence for the sound of a wandering footstep, despite my assurances that at this time of night, no one wanders.

"You can never be too sure." He had said when I told him to relax, looking out to the courtyard, where the odd guard mills around, bored and tired, eager to go back the homes they long for. Maybe they have families, wives they care for and children they cherish, but their return home is delayed by the abrstract possibility of (Gasp!) outlaws…

"With me around you can. There's not a single step from near past sunset to the edge of dawn, especially down at the east end of the castle."

He looked at me. "You know everything there is about this place, don't you?"

I turned my head away at this point and continued to saunter up the halls, unafraid, sure of myself for the first time in a great long time.

"No. Only the dungeons, many of the maids, Gisborne, the Sheriff, the floors and ceilings and John Lacy's wife from he says 'bout her." I smiled and nodded for him to follow. "Come on."

He walked over to stand beside me, smiled and winked. "Show me around."

XxX

She seemed happy, which was what surprised me most of all. In the only place where she should be doubled over in fear, unconscious with horror, she is smiling.

Her smile… It makes her seem younger, though she is already very young. No more than 28 she tells me, and no less than 13 when he claimed her. And yet, even as she looks around curiously, she seems younger. If even possible, for her smile made her nearly childish. Her scars and torture had aged her, her friends before us had given her the wisdom of a thousand men, and the cold of the dungeons had given her warmth you could only see when she revealed her secret grin.

"That's the strong room. We haven't yet broken into it yet, but we hear that that's where the Sheriff keeps all the tax money, right there behind that door." I tell her in passing of the large door, taking care to show her the trip wire.

Allie looked at it thoughtfully, mouth barely open.

"It's also where Much discovered his fear of dogs."

She smiled.

"He was telling me about that when he was making me cook with him. Told me they were the size of horses, with jaws so big they could swallow a man whole. I told him Gisborne introduced me to them once, and that shut him up right away." Something in her voice tells me she is serious...

She walked away from the door slowly, leaving me. I don't mind, she's grinning like a fool.

I follow behind her, letting her walk the halls alone with her thoughts. She's funny like that, you know. She could sit and stare for hours, alone in a world all her own that she never shares with any of us, coiled tight, prepared for a blow wherever it may come from, from no matter whom. She'd ignore the weather, the noise around her, the light of the sun burning in her eyes, and just sit, lost in every blow and scar she's ever been dealt.

She stops finally, feet together, takes a deep breath, and closes her eyes. "What is it?" I ask, stopping beside her, seeing how tight her eyes are shut, the sharp intake of breath as she feels my hand brush hers.

"Nothing." She marches on. We pass doors, locked or those we are unwilling to open, before we come to the entrance of the dungeons, where she looks down the stairway to the torch lit, no expression on her face, no look in her eyes but homesickness, the kind you see in soldiers as the harsh desert sand burns in their eyes, as the thought of her and them back home smolders in their minds…

"Missing it?"

We freeze.

The voice is not my own, nor hers. It is behind us. I know this voice.

"I should expect her to." Speaks another, even more familiar then the first, low and gravely, and is followed by the creak of leather, the tinkle of a sword leaving its scabbard, its tip glinting out of the corner of my eye as it presses into the small of my back, a warning. Do not move the blade seems to whisper. "It's all she really knows, after all my lord."

Allie does not move, frozen to place, not by fear, by recognition. She knows. It seems she always knows…

"Now Guy, I cannot help but wonder," says the Sheriff as he walks slowly to her, his hand ghosting over her shoulder. Her back is straight, arms at her sides, staring into the dungeon below, "Will she speak now?"

Guy nudges the sword, guiding me to the wall where I am forced to lie against it, spreading my hands above my head.

"Guy somehow knew you would come back," whispers the Sheriff in her ear, his hand trailing inches away from her arm, "Hasn't slept in his own house in quite a while, waiting for you to come back, knew you would need to see it again."

And then, with a sudden push from his strong hand, she is flying down the stairs, the stony steps that lead down to the only place she knows other then the forest.

XxX

Anguish. Suffering. Agony.

I feel my legs and ribs crunch as they hit the stone, cracking and shattering into the many fragmented pieces they had been in before. I stifle any yell, any noise, any whimper that could make them turn to Robin, any weakness that will give them any inkling to the injuries I have sustained. Should they know I am hurt and incapable of escape, they may turn to him.

Truly? The pain burns and sears like fire, like the fire I watch burn in the camp every night, the fire that I have not felt this set in my bones in a long, long time. It reminds me of the countless hours spent below; where Guy spent hours on end with me, teaching me without realizing it, everything I will ever need to know about pain.

_Get up_ I think to myself, biting my tongue to keep from crying out in pain, _distract them. Get up._

I lean against the wall, as my shattered legs and cracking ribs scream and protest at my movement, but I have to, draw one of them away so maybe Robin can escape.

"Oh Hood. I hardly noticed you there. Nice of you to join us." The Sheriff looks at the man who wears the face of my nightmares as he smirks into Robin's neck.

The Sheriff calls for guards, and I can hear their shuffling footsteps above. Determination pushes adrenaline through my limbs and I stand, knees quivering.

"I don't think so lass." A knife is at my throat seconds after my rise, icy and unforgiving, "Twas a foul beating you gave the back o' me 'ead when you flew off like a little minx."

Oh but of course… how could I have forgotten? The jailer… Fear grips me, worried the Sheriff might just assume I am extra baggage in the capture of Robin Hood, and tell the jailer to finish me off before Guy speaks up.

"Not a single drop Harry;" warns Gisborne as he releases Robin to the guards waiting behind, all with various weapons raised, "her blood is mine to spill."

Gisborne smirks as Robin is shackled, and grabs a fistful of his hair, pulling his gaze towards me. As if by some unseen signal, Harry knocks my unsteady knees out from under me, and all at once, it is familiar.

_A dark figure looms above me, my face laying against the cold stone floor, torches burning sinisterly, their flames flickering in his malice filled eyes, as he stands above me like the god he thinks he is. The cold of the dungeons clings to my skin and chills me; the pain I know is coming, aching and calling to me, reaching out with a burning hand to touch…_

_I know this._

Gisborne gives Robin's head a little shake. "See her? See her lying there?" His whisper hisses around us all like the sizzle of water on a fire, and echoes through the hallway above, the stairwell below, and the ears of everyone who hears it, "She's mine."

Harry drags me to my feet, and despite my best efforts I gasp from the searing pain of my legs, and Robin is forced to follow me. As we are led down a path I know well, passing prisoners in their cells, some calling out to me, saying they know my face, but they are silenced once they see the Sheriff following us from behind.

Down deeper we go, to a place Robin has never seen, cages where people were kept now empty, the dungeon lonely and quiet, quieter and emptier then I have ever seen it.

"We made room for you both." Calls the Sheriff from the back of the line. "Had to kill everyone else though, a shame really." His comment is for my ears alone, and instantly, the image of Walter lying in a pool of his own blood, eyes cold and dead, hands lax and never to be moved again. I cringe, the thought chilling.

Finally, after a few minutes of shuffling down steep stairs, through dark halls and the cave-like maze of life below, where the people that used to live here had memorized the sound of their own screams, we arrive at my cell. I never realized that the blood stains there had been so scarlet…

My door slams with a familiar clang, rusted hinges creaking and grinding. They turn to Robin, falling on him like predators at the prospect of a meal, three blows delivered to his gut before he is shoved roughly into the cell beside mine, where he falls clumsily to his knees, cringing as they scrape against the rough stone. The Sheriff pushes his bald head into the bars on Robin's cell, his evil face contorting into a smile like that of a child.

"Tomorrow, you are going to see what happens to those who escape." His tongue flicks like a snake at me, and I shiver. His meaning is clear…

Tomorrow, it begins again.


End file.
